Pastor Olaf Latzel: Halte durch! Du bist nicht allein in deiner Not.

The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and helps those who have a broken heart. And this is something that is repeatedly reported by the men and women of the Bible. It is not said that they win one lottery and enter one success after another, but the broken heart is something that accompanies the men and women of the Bible again and again. I can only remember the great Elijah again and again. This great prophet who goes into the desert with the absolute desire to die, who can no longer, who in the end is burned out, depressed, in absolute fear of the people, of Isabel, who imitates him, who can no longer. A broken heart, a broken heart. Or last week, Brother Birbaum preached here about Hiob, who loses everything there, his wealth, his family, his health, at the absolute low point of a broken heart, of a broken heart. The great Luther, he too was a deeply depressed person, of a broken heart again and again. And that he found this word, I think, has a lot to do with the fact that he has experienced exactly that again and again, this broken heart, this broken heart. If he had not had his wife Katharina von Bora, then it would not have gone on in many places, which had to build him up again and again, because he was desperate again and again, the pressure on him was too great and he sometimes could not do it at all, was completely at the end. William Bush, the beginning of the service of God, as I said, was his favorite psalm. When you hear preaching from this man, then you believe, my goodness, he preached everything away, such a strong, religious brother. If you deal a little with his biography, what depths he had when he was in the Gestapo prison, who lost his two sons, one as a little child, the other in Russia, who experienced deep, deep, broken heart. And I could go on now, I could tell you about the songwriters in our singing book, about the men and women in the Bible, and you can believe me, with everyone we find these situations of broken heart and broken spirit. It is more important that this is also the reality for our life. We all, when we look at our life, thinking back, can say, yes, there was the situation of the broken spirit, of the broken heart. In the case of grief, where a loved one has passed away, in the grief of love as a young man, in sickness, in traumatic experiences, in unemployment, in exclusion. We all know these situations. And maybe one or the other of you is also in such a situation right now. The situation of the broken heart, of the broken spirit. He no longer understands the world. Everything has become different than it was a year ago. Then I can say with confidence to you, this personal experience must be experienced by every human being. It is like the coldness in the body, which every human being gets sooner or later and several times in his life. So it is also with the broken heart and with the broken spirit. These are things that will not be spared in this fallen world. We had them, we may be in it now, and I don't have to paint a gloomy future, but you will come back into such situations. Things that you can't even imagine right now, will meet you in months, in years, that you are of the broken spirit and broken heart. That you are, as the Geneva translation says, a little freer without hope. The translation of this broken spirit is very free without hope. Such situations also exist for Christians, it exists for every human being, that you think, now everything is over. It is an anthropological basic component, that we just experience this broken spirit. Not just a David, not just a Elijah, not just a Job, a William Bush, a Luther. No, we too, me and you, we will always have this terrible experience of the broken spirit and the broken heart. An old priest once told me, with the closeness of God it is like with a well-tempered living room. If it's 25 degrees outside, then the well-tempered living room doesn't mean much to us. But if it's minus 20 degrees outside, and we worked all day in the garden, then we know how to appreciate the living room in a completely different way. And so it is also with the situations of the broken spirit and the broken heart. There you experience the closeness of the living God in a completely different way. When life works so wonderfully, one promotion after the other comes, the marriage harmonizes, the family runs, you are healthy and so on, in the middle of the forties, in the middle of the juice and power of life, yes, you also believe in God, but then he is often a bit on the edge. But when the arrows of life start to wobble, and one breaks away, the other breaks away, then you are so grateful for the one central arrow, if you have it, namely the living God, and if you feel his closeness. And it is actually so, if you are in the broken mood, this is meant here, when you are at the end, then you feel the closeness often more intensely than in the high times of life. And that also has to do with it, because our Lord and Savior, especially for those who have come into the world, who are not healthy and strong and successful, but for the desperate, the lonely and the sick. He is always looking for the way to the mourners, to the burdened and to those who are a broken heart, a broken mood. William Bush, he repeated it again and again in his sermons, said, the Lord Jesus Christ has a desire for misery, a desire for a broken heart. And that's the wonderful thing, that we should know that. As terrible the situation of broken mood and broken heart is, we have a God who wants to be particularly close to us. This is meant here, the Lord is close to those who have a broken heart, he is close to those who have a broken heart, and he helps those who have a broken mood. Now I would like to speak to those who are currently in misery. To you, to those who are here in the church, to those who are at the computer, who will hear this sermon in a while. Jesus sees your misery, your fear, your neglect, your illness, your family, professional problems, your sorrows. You are not alone. You need to know that God is very close to you in Jesus Christ. And then people often ask, but how do I experience this? That's what I would like. How does it work? The wonderful thing is that our wonderful psalm gives us an answer to how it works, how it works. There are so many places that show us what to do as a human being. This is not an automatism. God is there, but that we feel him and experience his closeness, that takes a few things. There are three things that are told to us here in Psalm 34, how we get this closeness and this help in a very concrete way. First, through the fear of the Lord. Second, through the search of the Lord. And third, through the cry to the Lord. So if you are in a broken mood and say, I would like to feel the closeness of God so much now, then it is important that you stay in the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord is something that the Bible always demands. Fear in this world is forbidden by the Bible. Fear of the Lord is what is offered. And this requested fear of the Almighty is described as fear of the Lord. That is, in verse 8, the angel of the Lord lies around those who fear him and he helps them out. That is the secret. If you are afraid of anything in this world, not being loved enough, that your money is not enough, that it will be difficult with health, the stronger you bind yourself to the fears, the further away God is. But if you let go of that and say, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, he is the only one who can help. I trust him. Then you will see how you feel the closeness of the living God. Then you will say, yes, but I can't do that. I just can't let go of my fears. But the decisive thing is that you fold your hands and say, Lord, I can't do it. Help me. Help me, give me your spirit, that I can let go of the fear in this world and that I will be strengthened in the fear of you. That's the first thing. If you want to feel the closeness of God, it is the fear of the Lord. The second is the search of the Lord. When we are broken and tired, then do not seek the help of this world, but seek the help of Jesus, seek the Lord. It says here in verse 5 of our psalms, When I sought the Lord, he answered me and saved me from all my fear. Yes, and where are we looking for the Lord? I don't have to explain that to you. We are looking for him in the Word, in the Word of God and nowhere else. A few years ago, I was standing with a hunter on a hunting trip. And he came up to me, he knew that I was a priest, and said, yes, Mr. Latze, you find the dear God. When people talk about the dear God, we know that they have no idea about the living Lord Jesus Christ. You are looking for the dear God in the church, I find him on the high seat. We were standing there together, we ate a sausage with bread, and I said, look at the bread. I said, you know, when you look at the bread, do you have an encounter with the baker who baked it? No. It is the same when you go into the creation. And when you look at the wonderful creation, you see how great the forest is and how beautiful the meadow is and how great the deer or the deer. But you have no idea about the Creator. You don't talk to him. It is the same when you stand in front of a building and say, oh, what a beautiful building. And you mean to understand how the architect who built it. It doesn't work that way. If we want to look for the Lord, we have to go where we find him. And we find him in the Word. Nobody has to walk any way to Santiago de Colmastella. You can do something for your fitness and experience how beautiful Europe is. But you don't find God there. God we find alone in his Word. And if you are exhausted, then go to the Bible, to the Bible, to the Bible. I wrote down homework for you today under the sermon text. You can read it on the Internet. If you want to look for God, read these psalms. Take them in. You will see where you find God. And the third thing you should do to have the closeness of the Lord, to shout to the Lord. Not just to pray, but to shout. This is an intensification of prayer. That's what it says here. Not my own recipe, it says so here in Psalm 34. When the righteous shout, the Lord hears and saves them from all their distress. Shouting is something that you forbid to the children. So when they get 5, 6 years old, then you say, we don't talk to each other like that. We just talk in normal volume and not over 70 decibels and all these things. And so we don't deal with each other. But the Bible always offers the shouting. And it's not about the volume, that you say I have to get to 105 or 110 decibels, but it's really about the wholeness. When someone shouts out of despair, then he is completely there. And so we should speak to God when we are broken hearts, when we are broken moods, then we should shout to the living God in a wholeness, where nothing else is important to us, where we ask for all the help from him. The Bible does not only speak of it in Psalm 34. Anniversaries that we have today, I believe, help my unbelief. This is what this father of the sick child says, not somehow a little bit intellectually, but it says exactly the father of the child shouts. Yes, I want to have faith. Jesus says, yes, all things are possible to him who believes. Then he shouts, I need exactly this faith. And then he is helped. Bartimaeus, the blind beggar before Jericho, he calls out to Jesus. Then they say, do not fit here, be quiet, he does not care. And he shouts even more. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. The Bible calls us to do so. Joel 1, to shout to the Lord. Gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the land of the Lord your God and shout to the Lord. Psalm 42. So my soul shouts to you. So again, it does not depend on the volume, but on the wholeheartedness. And if you are not in your broken heart, in your broken mood, then you can also shout louder to the living God. That is favorable to him. If we shout for him, like a little child for his mother, who is alone and afraid to say, Mom, Mom, I need you. And that is favorable to God. If we shout, Jesus, Jesus, I need you. Nothing else. Not like that, I was at the doctor, I bought the medicine, I also do a new sports program. Oh yes, I could also pray. Yes, and if it is also favorable to you, then let it all work out. Jesus, also give your blessing. No, shout, Lord Jesus, I trust you alone, I need your help. So that's how you can get the closeness of the Lord with a broken heart, through the fear of the Lord, through the search of the Lord and through shouting to the Lord. The wonderful thing is, if I stay in the fear of the Lord, if I look for him, if I shout to him, if I let go of arrogance, if I let go of earthly security, then I may know that in the end everything will be fine. That's what it says here in our sermon text. The righteous must suffer a lot. But out of all this the Lord helps him. Out of all this. And that's not just the only verse here in this Psalm 34, again and again this, really, everything will be fine. Verse 5. When I sought the Lord, he answered me and he saved me out of all my fear. Verse 7. When one in misery cried, the Lord heard and helped him out of all his need. Verse 18. When the righteous shout, the Lord hears and saves them out of all their need. We must know this. Everything will be fine if we stay in the Lord. Everything will be fine. That's a sentence that only reborn Christians say that goes the way of faith. Otherwise, this way, this word is wrong. Everything will be fine, I can only say to reborn Christians. I was in my time in Siegen, a specialist counsellor at the fire department in Siegen. We also had a main duty guard who also led the rescue service. And I did immediate training for all the people It was also about how I deal with people, if a rescue assistant has reanimated someone or tried to reanimate and that does not work. Now in the neighboring room is the wife and now you have to say, it did not work, transfer the death notification. These are not simple situations. The medical-technical, how you have such a reanimation, that's one thing, you can learn that. But this situation, when you come to people, you are called, the man has just fallen over, then the ambulance comes, they reanimate him, now he is dead, you have to say something to the person, you can not just pack your clothes and say goodbye. And then he had in this speech, there were a number of people together, then one told of a very terrible event he had, he said he was done with everything, then he went to the woman, an older lady, and then he did not know what to say, and then he patted her on the shoulder and said, everything will be fine. He did not know what else to say, he was not religious, everything will be fine. Then this woman screamed at him, nothing will be fine, my husband is dead, now everything is over. And that hit him terribly, because he realized, he had said total nonsense, that's not true, nothing will be fine for this woman, everything is over, she was not a Christian. And then he asked me in this round, this training session, what do I have to say to the people, tell me three or four top sentences, that you can say in such a situation, if you have to tell someone, I'm sorry, your husband is dead, we could not do anything for him. Then I said, this all will be fine, you can tell people, but you have to know, that they are reborn Christians, for them this sentence applies. I explained to everyone else, explain to them, what you have done technically, and just say, I'm very sorry. You can not say more, then it's okay. But to Christians, you can say, because this is the truth, no matter how deep the misery is, no matter how terrible the broken mood is at the moment, everything will be fine for us. Everything will be fine. There is final help. This is what the Bible speaks of, over and over again, already in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, I have now read all the proclamations about what the redeemed of the Lord will experience. They will come to Zion, they will rejoice, eternal joy will be over their heads, joy and mourning they will receive, and pain and mourning they will be redeemed. We all know this word from the Revelation, God will wipe away all tears from their eyes, death will no longer be, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain. The first is gone. We are allowed to know, in the end everything will be fine. Often we already experience in this world, as King David was allowed to experience, that he turned the terrible situation, and that he could finally become one of the most powerful and influential politicians and people in this world. But we are all allowed to know, at the very latest in death, we will experience the final help. And everything that makes us broken, that will one day be lifted up by our Lord Jesus Christ, when we are with him, in heavenly Jerusalem. And if you know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even if I don't see it clearly yet, then you have the strength to experience these terrible situations of the broken heart and the broken spirit. And I would like to say that to you at the end of this sermon, who are currently in such a situation of the broken heart and the broken spirit. If you belong to Jesus Christ and trust him, then you must know, everything will be fine. The living God calls you once again. Just trust that the Lord will change your situation. And in this sense, I would like to call you to this sermon verse again. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and helps those who have a broken spirit. The righteous must suffer a lot, but the Lord helps him out of all this. All praise, all praise to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.